A friend asked me an interesting question today: How come her sister likes to buy branded stuff every now and then to soothe her nerves? What is then a shopping therapy? I replied with a question: Do you find me a miser or a spender? She replied: Most of the time, kiam (a miser)! @#$%^&*()_+~! ... Never die before, she don't have to be so frank lor.
Shopping Therapy
Shopping (retail) therapy is shopping with the primary purpose of improving the buyer's mood or disposition. Often seen in people during periods of depression or transition, it is normally a short-lived habit. Items purchased during periods of retail therapy are sometimes referred to as "comfort buys".
Retail therapy was first used as a term in the 1980s with the first reference being this sentence in the Chicago Tribune of Christmas Eve 1986: "We've become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy."
The European Union conducted a study finding that 33% of shoppers surveyed had "high level of addiction to rash or unnecessary consumption". This was causing debt problems for many. The same study also found that young Scottish people had the highest susceptibility to binge purchasing.
Researchers have advocated its classification as a psychological disorder called oniomania or compulsive shopping disorder.
Blood Money (血汗钱)
If you are an employee, you make money by burning your life essence to a corporation. It is blood money. You feel stressed, you feel bottled up, you feel so small and you don't feel needed. To release stress, you go out and blow the very money that the corporation gave you. You shout at the waitress at the most minute detail. You show middle finger to those who are slow at crossing your path. You talk loudly when buying branded stuff. You are obnoxious to the core to say the very least. You feel powerful. You feel invincible. You feel RICH. But, immediately after the brief spending, you are back putting your nose back to the grindstone. This is the shopping therapy people talked about. The cycle repeats every so often.
If you are an employer (a.k.a. boss), you make money by spending time managing the corporation. It too is blood money. You feel stressed whenever the sale goes down. You feel the government-of-the-day is always against you, but you still need to suck their cocks, i.e., be their grassroots and be trampled on. You feel betrayed when your very own worker goes out to set up an exact business to compete with you. You always get paid last, but yet pretend to be still rich by frequently paying for all meals consumed by the corporation. Again, many employers perform the shopping therapy ritual too.
To sum: As long as you spend time minding the job or business, it is blood money.
If it is blood money, it cannot be spent on luxury. Period. Invest your blood money wisely and nurse them to fruition.
If you go to a nice restaurant using blood money, you will not be rich. If you buy a nice handbag using blood money, you will not get out of your miserable work cycle. If you buy an expensive holiday using blood money, you will not be financially free.
What is then not blood money? Rentals you get from a fully paid property. Excess money you get from business after accounting for all business costs, your own salary, research & development funding, savings for future business expansion. Money you get from not having to work at it to get it. In addition to all of the above requirements, the non-blood-money must also be recurrent. Only recurrent funds can be classified as non-blood-money. Money that requires to answer the question of what-if is also not considered non-blood-money.
How to spend non-blood-money? This is the happy part. You just buy the best things in life you can afford, loan-free though. There is no need to compare prices.
Self-Defence
The reason why I am still termed "kiam" (a miser) is because I still have not made it. Hence, most of the time, I am restrictive in my spending. But, I do have occasions that I am a spendthrift. Hopefully, these times will get more frequent as I expected.
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